It's that time of year again…
It's "Business as usual" at the CJCCC National Archives; but
nothing is ever quite "usual" in the world of Archives, as each day
brings something new and unexpected our way.
We acquired some interesting new holdings and additions to
existing collections: among them a small box of mysteriously
deposited papers pertaining to the xenophobic group "Native
Sons of Canada", historical documents from
Na'amat Pioneer Women of Canada dating back to
before the Second World War, bulletins from a Quebec City
synagogue in the 1950s, and recent records from Peace
Now and the Labour Zionist Alliance.
Thanks to a processing grant from the Bibliothèque et
Archives nationales du Québec, we catalogued an important
collection of records created by the Honorable Alan B.
Gold. A detailed description of this collection was
carried out by project worker Laura Markiewicz and is now available
online. See http://www.cjhn.ca/en/permalink/cjhn75972.
In addition, under the auspices of the Jewish
Genealogical Society of Montreal, we welcomed back Aaron
Krishtalka to continue his meticulous work translating Yiddish
obituaries from the Keneder Adler (Jewish Daily Eagle). This
project will allow us to add the years 1933 and 1934 to the
genealogical resources already available on the CJHN.
Once
again this year we were able to accomplish a great deal with the
help of a new crop of student interns and the continued support of
our loyal volunteers. During the Winter 2014 term McGill student
Evelina Stulgaiyte worked on backlog reduction of CJC records, and
with her help we were able to upload 7358 personal name subject
files to the Canadian Jewish Heritage Network (http://cjhn.ca). These nuggets of
diverse information from the Archives' database listings include at
least 450 files containing obituaries, which are of considerable
help to genealogy researchers. Meanwhile, John Abbott College
student Emily Faulkner worked on unprocessed records from the
Jewish Immigrant Aid Services collection. Among
her discoveries were a group of 1920s immigration case files which
had been lost for dozens of years.
In the fall
our student intern was Esmael Saad from UQAM (Université de Québec
à Montréal). With his help we tackled various French-language
records series of the CJC collection, as well as a wide range of
other assignments. Like the Winter term students, Esmael also added
to our online audiovisual offerings by making a video from a
converted old audiotape, in this case a 1989 inteview with Montreal
businessman Irving Shiller (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBEcpL99jFQ).
Volunteers Willie Glaser, Shirley Sibalis and Eunice Seligson
continued to refine their expertise in records processing and
physical conservation, while making more available to the public
our collections such as the Bloomfield family's
Zionist organizational activities (http://www.cjhn.ca/en/permalink/cjhn75347),
Judy and Myer Gordon's records about the Montefiore Hebrew
Orphans Home (http://www.cjhn.ca/en/permalink/cjhn91),
and additional sections of CJC's records from the war years to the
present.
Among the group presentations we gave this year, we were
especially pleased to have the opportunity to present selected
archival materials to a class of McGill students on the topic of
German Jews interned in Canada during World War II. Meanwhile,
reaching outside our own walls, we have contributed materials for
upcoming exhibits at the new Museum of Human
Rights in Winnipeg and the Museum of
Immigration in Halifax. We continue to work closely with
the online Museum of Jewish Montreal (http://imjm.ca/) and have embarked on
another major digitization project of Holocaust Survivor
testimonies organized by the Montreal Holocaust Memorial
Centre.
Finally, behind the scenes, working closely with the
Archives of the Jewish Public Library of Montreal,
over the past year we have been refining the search functions of
the CJHN.CA website, with important ongoing financial support from
the Alex Dworkin Foundation for Jewish
Archives.
And on we go to another year…
Janice Rosen
Archives Director